James Brown: Recovered Soul

Owwwww! He Feels Good, And Why Shouldn't He? After A 2 1/2-year Prison Stint, He Has His Personal Demons In Check And His Life And His Career Back On Track.

August 23, 1991|By Jim Abbott of The Sentinel Staff

People call him the hardest-working man in show business.

Well, if a recent phone interview is any indication, James Brown deserves the title for his office skills alone.

Over the phone, the atmosphere at Brown's Augusta, Ga., headquarters resembled the fringe of a tornado as the Godfather of Soul prepared for his first tour since serving 2 1/2 years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault, failure to stop for police and weapons violations. (Brown will perform Saturday at the Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg.)

In fact, Brown's phone lines were so jammed that there was a 30-minute wait for an audience with Soul Brother No. 1 - sort of an audio holding pattern, complete with an occasional spiel from a secretary that the caller hadn't been forgotten. But once on the line, Brown's spirited demeanor more than made up for the delay.

''I feel GOOOD!,'' Brown exclaimed in that unmistakable voice, so powerful that it made you want to hold the phone away from your ear. ''I'm very hot. I've got more records going than ever before. All the teachers are calling me, and all the ministers are calling me. Everybody seems to think I've done something like a saint or something, I don't know. But I thank God for it.''

Ooowwwww! This was starting to get good. But, within moments, he was gone.

''Hold on one minute, please,'' Brown said as he stopped to answer one of the many ringing phones that were creating a distracting sort of Muzak behind his exuberant outbursts. (Hard working? You've got to respect a guy who answers his own phones.)

Minutes later, Brown was back and ready to talk about his new album, Love Over-Due, which he banged out with his 17-piece band in just six days at Miami's Criteria Studios. Although that might seem like a Herculean feat in today's world of high-tech studio tricks, Brown shrugged it off as no big deal, saying that he likes to work fast.

''Well, I have arrangements,'' he said. ''I know what I'm going to do when I go in there. I don't go in there and put a song together. I have it put together when I go in - it's called organization.''

After almost 35 years in the music business, if there's one thing Brown knows, it's how to make hit records. After scoring with ''Please, Please, Please'' in 1956, he went on to record 45 Top 10 rhythm 'n' blues singles during the '60s and early '70s - dominating soul music in a way that hasn't been equaled since. He won his second Grammy in 1987 for the song ''Living in America'' from the Rocky IV soundtrack.

Despite his considerable success, Brown's life also has been dogged by a dark side - characterized by recurring stories of drug and spouse abuse.

Some of his problems became public knowledge on Sept. 24, 1988, when Brown burst into an insurance seminar next door to his Augusta office, waving a gun and complaining that strangers were using his bathroom. From there, he jumped into his pickup truck and led police on a 20-hour chase through Georgia and South Carolina at speeds reaching 80 mph. When officers shot out two of his tires, Brown continued driving on the rims for six miles until he was finally stopped. Traces of the hallucinogen PCP were found in his blood, and he was eventually sentenced to six years at South Carolina's State Park Correctional Institution. He was paroled in February.

Today, Brown curtly dismisses the incident by suggesting that his celebrity status made him a victim of the system.

''I feel sorry for the people who would convict a man on a traffic violation and make a new precedent on it. It was just kind of bad. I also feel sorry for (televangelist) Jim Bakker, as well. We've got to rebuild this country. This country is in a problem, and we need a lot of help.''

Musically, Brown's Love Over-Due has been hailed by critics as a throwback to his heyday - before he began tinkering with his musical formula during the disco era. For those who have grown weary of the sterile techno-pop that dominates today's radio playlists, the album's crisp sound will be a shot-in-the-arm.

''It pulsates,'' Brown said of the album. ''Music on a synthesizer or machine, it don't move. The machines are just having fun doing nothing. It (the synthesized sound) is just like dropping a telephone when it's pulled out of the wall, you know what I mean? There's no emotion - none.''

Along with funk workouts on ''(So Tired of Standing Still We Got to) Move On'' and ''Dance, Dance, Dance to the Funk,'' the album includes an emotive version of Hank Ballard's ''Teardrops on Your Letter'' and the salsa-flavored ''It's Time to Love (Put a Little Love in Your Heart).'' The latter includes a passage sung in Spanish by South Florida musician Manny Patino.